Author: crazy pancake lady

A while ago I had a short holiday in my favourite European city Paris. I probably ate ten different pancakes during the holiday and I still think Paris is the best place in the entire world to find good pancakes, waffles, crepes… Whatever you call them. This time I also had an enormous pancake crush and found my new favourite brunch spot from the city of love. I wanted to pick restaurants from different arrondissements while we spent time in many places during the holiday. In general one thing I highly recommend when you’re eating in crepe restaurants is to order some good cider every time as Paris has such a wide range of different ones in restaurants.

Breizh Cafe – Le Marais

109 rue Vieille du Temple – 4ème arrondissement Le Marais

I’ve been wanting to come here since my previous Paris trip. This place is very hyped pancake spot in Le Marais area and last time I visited Paris the line was so huge I hadn’t nervs to wait. We stopped by there this time at lunch time which wasn’t a good idea either. The place was pumped and the line looked pretty devastating but we ended up to queue around 20 minutes. Breizh Cafe Le Marais serves mainly traditional breton crepes and it has a wide range of savoury crepes. We ordered one dish with chorizo, tomato and mozzarella cheese and the other one with traditional combination; cheese, ham and mushrooms. Both tasted great – the traditional version a bit better tho. Breizh Cafe has a lot of different cider choices and we tried organic, small cider label that was a restaurant’s recommendation.

La Creme Paris

2 Rue du Faubourg Montmartre – 9ème arrondissement Opéra

This place looked SO PRETTY on Instagram and had gotten pretty nice reviews so I thought it was worth checking out. The restaurant definitely looked nice but the food was average at the Paris pancake scale. We ordered one portion of waffles and one portion of crepes. I was a bit disappointed that both the crepes and the waffles were already half-made before hands so they weren’t so good they’d be. In my opinion pancakes has to be everytime served immediately after cooking. Otherwise restaurant has really pretty decoration and cozy atmosphere.

Breizh Cafe – Odéon

1 rue de L’Odéon – 6ème arrondissement Saint Germain

Saint Germain district is becoming one of my favourite areas in Paris as more I spend time in this city. I’ve heard so much good about Breizh Cafe’s pancakes and I wanted to give a shot for the other Breizh Cafe as we were at the Saint Germain district one day when we spent some time at the Luxembourg park. I didn’t try any sweet pancakes at Le Marais restaurant so I needed to get some. We ordered two classics; one with fresh strawberry jam and the other with dark Valhrona chocolate sauce and artisan vanilla ice cream. If you’re aiming to have a bit tipsy pancake lunch this is you’re place to go. I also have to mention that we probably got the best service ever in Paris.

Holybelly 5

5 rue Lucien Sampaix – 10ème arrondissement Canal St. Martin

Last morning of the trip we wanted to have a great Sunday brunch and I totally nailed it with my choice of restaurant. Like Holybelly’s website says – damn fine food and coffee. That wasn’t an empty promise at all. I had a feeling that this might be a popular brunch spot in Paris so we were sharply 9:30 at the restaurant – and it was a wise move because there wasn’t any queue. BUT when we left around 45 minutes later there was about 50 people behind the doors. Holybelly totally blowed our minds with its food and the uniq atmosphere as well; the decoration is on point, the service is great and the music was just like some of my fave playlists with old school Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Creedence Clearwater Revival. We ordered a Sweet Stack portion; pancakes with seasonal fruits, nuts and syrup and a combination of fried eggs, oven roasted tomato, sausage patty and toast. The pancakes were incredible moist and creamy, something between French crepe and American pancake in my opinion. That with fresh juice and coffee was just a perfection. When in Paris – go there!

While ago I got invited to Tikkurila Festival by Kopparberg. I am pretty used to going to festivals mostly because of my job and interest in music. This summer though has been so busy that I haven’t been able to visit as many as normally. That’s why I was excited to attend this festival for the first time. Tikkurila Festival brings together best Finnish pop artists which are in my opinion amusing to listen with friends but musically not something I’d add to my Spotify playlist.

During the past few years, Finnish summer events have developed significantly what comes to the selection of food and drinks. Tikkurila Festival wasn’t an exception – there was plenty of possibilities to eat and drink “not so basic festival food” like asian food, sea food, many vegan choices and great burgers. What so ever the food service at the VIP section was ridiculously slow with way too long queues. Small crepe kiosks are common view at the open-air events around Europe and I was happy to notice that we have got the first ones to Finnish festivals as well. I’ve eaten countless times various pancakes at open-air events abroad and my all time favourites have been at annual summer festivals in Travemünde Germany where I spent few holidays when I was a teenager. There was a bad ass German old lady baking huge crepes from scratch with endless topping variations.

While I was hyped that we’ve got first real crepe kiosks to Finnish festivals I wasn’t so hyped about my crepe though. There weren’t many people at the kiosk but all the crepes were already prepared before hand and the staff heated the crepes only with a crepe-pan and added toppings. In my opinion the most essential thing with good crepes are that they’re fresh and hot so that the texture is still moist, so in this case the crepe tasted like it was made yesterday. Still learning from the lady in Travemünde festivals!

Generally the festival weekend went really well. I spent time mainly at the cute Kopparberg lounge with my friends and enjoyed the good festival vibes and some gigs. The highlight of my festival moments were the styling sessions we had both days at the Kopparberg lounge where the talented make up artist Hanna Valjakka styled us festival looks with some glitter make up and hippie festival hair looks.

Strawberry and cream cake is an ultimate tradition in Finnish families. Basically every Finn has eaten it at some point and potentially everyone is going to eat it at least once in the summertime. I’ve been dying to try the crepe cake or pancake cake (sounds a bit weird does it…?) for so long but I had major difficulties to decide what kind of crepe cake I want to do first. Finally I picked up a classic theme for this one and it was a success. I can highly recommend it as a dessert or cake for endless summer parties.

CREPE CAKE

Serves 8-10

SWEDISH CREPES AKA SVENSKA PLÄTTOR:

Mix the ingredients in a large cooking bowl and let the mixture sit at least 15 minutes before cooking the crepes. Remember to choose a proper pancake pan for frying and use a thin spatula for flipping a crepe. Heat the pan over medium temperature and add some butter to make the pan non-sticky. Don’t pour too much mixture into pan just enough to cover the pan.

FILLING:

Wait until crepes are cooled down. Whip the cream. Place a crepe into large cake plate and cover the crepe with a thin layer of jam and thin banana slices. Top with another crepe and then add layer of whipped cream, quark and strawberries. Repeat and take turns with each layer of filling. Decorate the top of the cake with whipped cream, strawberries and lemon balm leaves.